


and I keep saying don't get on the plane

by ghostwit



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dream Sequence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, is it really my work if I don't have the heart pirates sleeping in a big ol' pile. no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwit/pseuds/ghostwit
Summary: and she sayssay cheese(a couple of nightmares)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	and I keep saying don't get on the plane

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [this.](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=15)
> 
> There's a metaphorical animal death in the last paragraph, feel free to skip if that bothers you. Lmk if I miss any other warnings!

Law’s wheezing, air squeezing tight through the narrowing column of his throat, scrabbling back onto the bed with his throat bared and feet sliding _fast-fast-too-fast_ on silken sheets. His knees are jerking up into the pile of bodies (still warm, blessedly warm) thrown over his legs, and still he slides backwards, flipping his hand palm-up with a hard swivel. _Hah-hah-hah_ , punched out and ending on a keen. They’re thin, cool, textureless under the relentless drive back where his elbows buckle under the weight of his own force. His eye is twitching hard under that scrunched up face, incomprehensible in low light. 

* * *

The worst part about it is the hope. It’s been thirteen years of the same dreams, of watching him laugh and sputter as he takes blows to the gut, to the rib, the tender stretch of connective tissue up under his armpit. The way his arm must’ve shook, Law thinks, pistol wavering just barely at chest level like the threading head of a viper. 

Every word’s a bubble, blackened with blood and stretching over his painted lips (with what? Painted with _what?_ ), sometimes it’s his name, blown out by the wet, dirty film of saliva, _La-aw_ , sometimes he reaches across the darkening snow with those hands big enough to swallow the sun and slots his fingers right in the ridges of Law’s temples, the places where the blood pools slick and he opens his mouth real wide so Law can see every one of those teeth--too many, maybe, he’s a doctor but he’s not sure he can count--and calls him _Corazon_ in that delighted purr _._

But mostly, it’s the smile, that brief second where it’s real and he’s right and he loves him and Cora-san isn’t a liar. The way the entire universe crumples in on itself, the fabric of the space of his dream stretched thin between outspread fingers like the cat’s cradle before balling up into that cubic meter of space between too-thin wood paneling that should splinter in jagged shards but instead wads up like wet cloth to stuff Law’s screams silent. Maybe that’s how it happened back then, too, waking up clammy and sobbing in the back of some _somewhere_ , sheets warped around him. 

It never happened, a boy spat out (clawed up, the beds of his nails are black with blood and viscera) from the depths of the lion’s jaw, fully-formed. 

Sometimes, there is no looming threat, no broad shoulders and hulking feather, only him and his monstrous grief, tainting the smiles of his parents and the way Lamie tugs at the shirt he’s got flopping loose over his wrist so his mother can lean down on her knees, smile up at him as she folds the cuffs up. He’s tall, so much taller than her, much taller than she ever got to see him, but she doesn’t see it the same way she doesn’t see the way his skin splotched over whiter than the streets. Her smile’s the same, so bright it’s unreal, like a cut-out from a magazine, something he must have seen somewhere else. Nothing feels organic under the cold glare of the white lead.

She walks, leading him under arching walkways, past the bridge and past the fountain and past the church, and he, for once, goes soft, achingly so. He can’t lie to her the way he does, but he can’t look up at her face either. “Listen to me, listen to me,” and she’s laughing, colorful strips of paper so stark and brilliant on pure white walkways. Candy apples. Every word’s a bubble, glossy and hard and too-red. He can’t stop himself from trying, if only to give justification to the guilt that’ll swallow him on waking.

He can’t look at her face. 

Would she listen if he did? It’s his fault all again.

He can’t sleep during the daytime. Something about the way the light sweeps over him, warming him in golden stripes that make his earrings glow sets him limber. Too limber, all the stiffness of anger drained from him until there’s no more purchase on the slick lining of the beast’s esophagus and he’s swallowed. Looming threat, feathers kissing the knobs of his spine as he stretches his arm lazy and languid over the arm of his seat.

* * *

Penguin wakes up with his head bouncing hard off the floor, _shambles_ ’d carelessly outside in a heap with Shachi’s chin digging hard into his gut and Bepo rolling away on his back a couple inches away. Noise leaks from beyond the door to the captain’s quarters, sounding something like a small animal being strangled to death, ah, _not good_. It’s unlocked, of course, but the forcible removal means something, means enough to keep the trio from fumbling their way back inside and holding Law’s head down against the mattress until he quits squirming and falls back into a tentative sleep. 

Shachi sits up, palm sliding against the sleeping Bepo’s sleeve as he does, twisting the fabric painfully against the mink’s elbow to summon forth a yelp. He slots his chin in his palm, cocking his head a little. Penguin’s mouth goes flat, cocking his head back in the other direction. Bepo grumbles, still supine on the floor. 

And wordlessly, Penguin rises, making his way towards the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> I only write the same three concepts over and over and just use different words. This is my messiest piece yet, ah. No more coherency =_= just tryna get something on the page. Should've just written that "Law works at the grocery store and Vergo makes his life a living hell" fic, dawg. That "and I keep saying don't get on the plane" line has just been swimming in my head all day.
> 
> L to my upload schedule. 
> 
> hazeism.tumblr.com


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